The studies of Milgram's electric shock experiments are viewed to have various ethical issues in business. The study is seeks to assess the effects of group norms on the behavior of an individual. Milgram was engrossed in the processes through which an individual can be persuaded to render great harm to the other by following specific orders. To explore this issue further, he came up with a laboratory experiment and volunteers were called up to act out the role of teachers who punished learners by putting them to electric shocks when they answered questions wrongly (McLeod, 2017). The electric shocks were not real; however, the volunteers were not informed about them. The intensity of electric shock was amplified with succeeding incorrect answers until the volunteers declined to administer more shocks. There was enhanced obedience for Milgram who advised the volunteers to continue operating electric shocks. He proposed that it was part of the study prerequisites and that they could not cause permanent harm. This was despite the piercing cries of agony. However, in a later adoption of the experiment, the volunteer was accompanied by a colleague who acted out the part of a person who refused to administer the shocks beyond a certain level (McLeod, 2017). In this case, the real subject continued to apply the shocks for a shorter period and then refused as the first volunteer had done. This study validates the magnitude at which people portray obedience to authority even if this involves causing pain to other people. It also divulges how group uprising can be a powerful means of resisting the experimenter's body.
The ethical issues in this study are mainly about the likely harm suffered by participants because of the research. Firstly, there was deception where the participants believed that they were electrocuting an actual person and were not cognizant that the learner was an associate of Milgram's. Conversely, Milgram's contended that illusion is employed when essential to prepare for the disclosure of specific hidden truths. Also, Milgram's debriefed participants after the experiment to reveal the aim and the real purpose of his study. Milgram followed up after a period to ensure that they came to no harm. Furthermore, participants endured extremely traumatic conditions that could cause psychological damage, and hence they were distressed. In defense, Milgram maintained that these outcomes were only short-term and once the participants were examined their level of stress diminished.
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Ordinary citizens are likely to obey orders given by a person in authority to the extent of causing murder to an innocent human being. Submission to power is entrenched in everyone based on the manner of upbringing. People tend to obey orders from others if they recognize their power as morally right and legally based. Hence Milgram's set up an experiment to test how much pain an ordinal citizen would inflict on someone else because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist.
Milgram's could have verified his idea on compliance without inflicting pain to his subjects. His research also sheds light on issues relating to deception which occurs when volunteers are not plainly and totally informed about nature of investigation. The current ethical values proclaim that volunteers or participants must not be misled and that they should be informed about the probable outcomes. The guiding principles elucidate that participants should get involved on a voluntary basis. Also, the participants have the liberty to withdraw at any given time. They should be directed after the research that there is a satisfactory result of the study without causing any harm. Hence, given these circumstances there is no harm or pain that can be inflicted on participants.
References
McLeod, S. (2017). The Milgram experiment . Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html
